


way down under the ground

by swimthewholeriogrande



Series: Hurt Jake Peralta [5]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Explosions, F/M, Hurt Jake Peralta, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, Trapped, Whump, collapsed building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 00:02:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20016964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: When the building falls around them, they don't make a sound.





	way down under the ground

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Way Down Hadestown from Hadestown

Everything is quiet after the world ends. 

After the tons and tons of concrete come crashing down on their heads - after the deafening sound of smashing stone and bursting pipes fades - Amy and Jake are left in utter silence. Jake can't even hear her breathing; for a moment, he thinks maybe she isn't breathing at all, and he doesn't know if he ever wants to again. 

Then she groans somewhere to his left, and Jake's eyes open wide. He can't see a thing. When he tries to sit up, he barely can before he knocks his head off a slab above him. Feeling around and coughing up dust, Jake determines that they are in the tiniest space imaginable, a pocket within the wreckage of the destroyed building. 

His hand finally pats blindly over what feels like Amy's shoulder. "Ames," he rasps, praying to a God he hasn't thought about in years that she is conscious, "can you hear me?"

There is more silence for a few seconds, and then they are both illuminated by the light of Amy's phone torch. He sees her drawn face, covered in dust, the startling white of her irises against the grime, and notes with some relief that her pupils are the normal size, that she is still breathing, that she is talking - oh, talking to _him_ -

He snaps back into awareness as she says his name. "-ke. Are you alright?"

He fumbles for her hand in the gloom. "I'm fine. I'm fine. Are you?" 

She smiles tightly, and Jake remembers her claustrophobia with a pang. "No injuries," she replies. "Have you checked yourself yet, Jake? Adrenaline can hide stuff. You might have gotten cut or something."

Jake leans back as much as he can to let her run the torchlight down him. "I don't feel anything. I mean, I don't feel great right now, but I think that's more to do with the fact that someone blew up the fucking building -"

He stops dead when Amy suddenly freezes, her eyes going wide. He suddenly would rather do anything than look down at himself, and can only look at her, his breath stopping in his throat.

Amy shuffles closer. "Jake." She doesn't break eye contact. "I need you to keep looking at me, okay? I don't want you to look down, alright? If you look at it it's going to start to hurt. Look at me. Babe -"

But he has to look, he has to because he is stupidly, morbidly curious, and - yeah. Yeah, Amy was right. As soon as Jake sees the pipe jammed into him, entering just above his right hip bone and going in God knows how deep, it starts to hurt like a _bitch_ , and he lets out a low sound instead of the scream that he wants to.

"Ssh, ssh." His wife is in motion, her hands pressing firmly around the sound that is bleeding sluggishly around the debris plugging it, and she doesn't let go even when Jake's throat works helplessly around another scream at the contact. "Stay calm. I need you to breathe, Jake. Can you do that?"

The phone, now abandoned next to them, is still shooting bright white light to the ceiling and Jake can see how flushed Amy's face is. But her hands are so steady - how is she so calm?

"Trust me, I'm not," Amy laughs breathlessly, and Jake realises he must have spoken aloud in his panic. "I'm freaking out. But you're freaking out more. Which is making me need to freak out less."

His entire torso feels like it's in a vice, but Jake smiles at her. His teeth are gritty. "Teamwork."

The minutes drag past until they turn into hours. Jake knows that people knew they were investigating the abandoned carpark, that the 99 will have heard about the bomb and have surely organised a rescue, but it's hard to remember that when Amy's phone only has thirty percent battery left and the pipe in his side is so filthy it looks like it could kill you just by touching it. He imagines the infection somehow already spreading around his body, ravaging his brain, boiling his blood, killing him, _I don't want to die -_

Amy isn't holding up very well either. She's kept the pressure on his wound steady, and her breathing is still mostly intact, but her face is getting paler and paler. Jake doesn't know if that's just fear or also due to the supposed lack of oxygen. He wonders how many floors of the carpark crashed down on them; he can't even remember where they were what it happened. He feels like they're twenty feet underground. He feels like he is never going to see the sky again, and as the clock keeps ticking Amy seems to be heading the same way - not that either of them would say. Instead Amy keeps up a stream of conversation in a very obvious ploy to distract Jake from the pain.

"You remember the cake, right? When Cheddar ate the whole thing? God, I really thought that would be the last straw for you! We should get the same kind for your birthday next month. Vanilla or chocolate, though?"

Jake can taste blood. He wonders how deep the pipe goes; he wonders if this technically makes him a kebab, and that kind of makes him want to giggle.

He doesn't realise that he was asked a question until Amy taps his face, her voice rising with worry. Jake forgets what it was in an instant. The pain is starting to recede into a full body buzzing sensation. 

"...at me, Jake. Please. Just - it's gonna be okay. Look at me."

Jake does, with some effort. His wife is gaunt and beautiful. "M'alright," he grunts, and she presses her forehead to his in the tiny space, her skin hot and damp.

"You are. We're alright. The 99 will be here any moment now, okay? Just hold on."

With a quiet puttering sound, Amy's phone dies and the torch flickers off. Jake almost thinks it's easier that way - because now Amy won't have to watch him die.

He almost says so, his mind clumsy with what he has to assume is near-fatal shock, but luckily swallows it back just in time. There's silence now, again, at the finish of the end of the world; Jake listens to his wife breathing and very gently takes the hand she still has pressed to his wound - the blood now clotted and sticky - and holds it instead.

"I love you so much," he tells her, and she doesn't seem able to reply.

-

Jake is apparently unconscious by the time the concrete begins to shift above them and the rescue team eases them out of the destruction, because he doesn't remember any of it happening. All he knows is that he woke up in an ICU ward with a tube in his mouth and a dull ache in his side covered in thick white gauze. Amy isn't there, and he thinks with a flash of terror _did they leave her down in the hole?_

Thankfully a nurse comes in within the minute and explains that Amy is on bed rest in the ward, receiving IV fluids to help rehydrate her after a nasty case of shock. Jake learns they were only down there for five hours, and can't believe it; surely it was years in the dark.

The nurse is kind and tells him to sleep after she takes out the tube; she tells him that next time he wakes up, Amy will be there, and that his mother is on the way. Jake is too tired to fight her on it, but he does make sure she opens the curtains before she leaves the room - the sky outside the window, stormy as it is, is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.


End file.
